Glowering testimonials

In pre-Blume days I set up a Local Government consultancy with a friend. Working for Local Authorities is terrific. They are staffed almost exclusively by very nice people, they do interesting and important things and they pay their bills on time. Moreover, if you do a good job for one Local Authority, the chances are that this Authority will tell other Local Authorities about it and so a virtuous circle is created.

This was lucky for us because one thing we were not very good at was getting testimonials from our clients. Getting good testimonial is a cringey faff which involves putting your client on the spot by asking for feedback, writing up anything nice they’ve said, going back to the client to ask them to put their name to it and then shouting about it from the rooftops.

The trouble is that these testimonials are invaluable. The pain involved in the process is part of what makes them so. If you see that somebody is prepared to vouch for a service publicly – and better still prepared to say so in a video – then you are umpteen* times more likely to buy from them.

We will soon be going through this cringey-process ourselves and asking happy Blumers and buyers alike to commit their happiness to video on our behalf.

We recommend you do the same for your organisation. And of course we recommend posting a task to see if you can find a Blumer who can talk to your clients and produce these testimonials for you. Who knows? Your clients might be even more effusive about you behind your back than to your face.